On the following evening I tried an experiment that I think is
unprecedented in the history of scientific inquiry. It occurred to me, that
if the assertion of the spirits that in materializing themselves they
accreted matter from the atmosphere by the operation of their own will were
true, and that the relative solidity of their materialization is under their
control, the thing might be tested by familiar mechanical appliances. I
could not conceive of solid matter without weight, and I had had too many
proofs of the materiality of the visible spirit-forms to fancy them
imponderable and unsubstantial. I had not only heard the shock of Honto's
feet upon the floor when she leaped over the railing and when she jumped
high from the floor in some of her capering; but, both in the dark and light
circles, had shaken hands with them, and been touched and playfully struck
many times. To my sense of touch they appeared as substantial as any human
being in the flesh, the only difference being in their temperature, which
was invariably lower than my own, and the skin, which was ordinarily covered
with a clammy sweat.

To put my theory to the proof, I procured in Rutland one of Howe's
Standard platform scales, the capacity and accuracy of which are attested in
the following certificate:

RUTLAND, Vt., October 6th, 1874 Henry S. Olcott, Esq., DEAR
SIR: I hereby certify that the platform scale you procured from me for
your weighing experiments, was one of Howe's best "Standards," set true and
in perfect order. It will weigh from one ounce to 500 pounds. Its own dead
weight is 110 pounds.
Respectfully, I. G. KINGSLEY

I caused it to be placed upon the platform, to the right of the cabinet
door, and just in front of the chair in which Mr. Pritchard sits. Being
denied the privilege of sitting there myself, in consequence, as I am told,
of my being of so positive a nature as to affect and repel the spirits (in
which particular neither Mr. Pritchard nor Mrs. Cleveland resemble me at
all) I had to rely for my experiment upon the gentleman in question.
Accordingly, I rehearsed the operation with him thoroughly, until he was
able, in the dark, to quickly weigh a person stepping upon the platform and
stopping there but a moment. I supplied him with parlor-matches, and after
some last instructions waited the auspicious moment.

When Honto came out she saluted us as usual, and then turned and
scrutinized the strange machine with Indian-like hesitancy. I told her what
was desired, and she then stepped boldly upon the proper spot, and bent
forward to look at the movements of Mr. Pritchard, as his hand moved the
poise along the beam. The balance being attained, as we could all plainly
hear by the sound of the beam against the pad, she stepped off and passed
into the cabinet. A match being struck, Mr. Pritchard read the scale at 138
pounds, which caused the audience no surprise, for, as the reader will
observe, by reference to the several pictures of Honto that appear in this
volume, she looks like a woman who would weigh from 135 to 145 pounds. But
the counter-poise at the end of the beam appeared to me too thin for the
l00-pound weight, and upon lighting a second match Mr. Pritchard found that
it was only the 50-pound weight, and consequently that the squaw had only
weighed 88 pounds. Honto now reappeared, and I asked her to make herself
lighter. She again mounted the platform, and this time it was found that she
weighed but 58 pounds. The experiment was repeated a third time, and her
weight stood the same as before--58 pounds. The fourth time the reading of
the beam showed 65 pounds. Thus, without any change of clothing, and all
within the space of ten minutes, this spirit, who weighed at the beginning
at least 50 pounds less than any mortal woman of her size and height should
weigh, reduced her materiality to the extent of 30 pounds, and, after
holding it there several minutes, increased it 7 pounds.

Of course it would have been infinitely more satisfactory if I could have
first peeped into the dark cabinet and then managed the scale myself, for in
such case I would not have to report, as to a portion of the facts, upon
hearsay testimony; and I leave to Mr. Crookes, Mr. Wallace, and other
intelligent observers, more favorably conditioned than I, the task of
following up this novel and suggestive inquiry.

Mr. Pritchard is a reputable citizen of Albany, N. Y., retired from
business in which he accumulated a competency, and I give his affidavit in
corroboration of the facts I have narrated :

MR. PRITCHARD'S AFFIDAVIT. State of Vermont, County of Rutland,
ss.--Edward V. Pritchard, of the City of Albany, State of New York, being
duly sworn, deposes and says that on the evening of September 23rd instant,
he attended a sťance or circle at the house of the Eddy family, in the town
of Chittenden, in the county and State aforesaid : that he was invited to
occupy a chair on the platform in a room known as the "circleroom," where
certain mysterious phenomena known as spirit materializations occurred ;
that among other forms presenting themselves and identified by persons in
the audience as the shapes of deceased friends and relatives, there appeared
the figure of an Indian woman known as " Honto," who approached so close to
deponent that he distinctly saw every feature of her countenance, and her
entire body ; that he is well acquainted with William H. Eddy, and avers
that the said " Honto " bore no resemblance whatever to him in any
particular. And deponent further says, that a pair of platform scales being
previously placed convenient to his reach, the said " Honto" stood thereupon
four separate times for deponent to weigh her, and that, without having
apparently changed her bulk:, or divested herself of any portion of her
dress, she weighed respectively 88 pounds, 58 pounds, 58 pounds, and 65
pounds at the several weighings. And deponent further says that, having
weighed the said William H. Eddy upon the same scales, he finds his weight
to be 179 pounds.

In his famous first article in the Quarterly Journal of Science for July,
1870, Mr. Crookes, in enumerating the results that he shall expect the
Spiritualists to help him to attain, before he can ask his scientific
brethren to investigate the phenomena, says :

"The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 pounds being
lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known force; but
the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will render
sensible a weight so small that it would take 10,000 of them to weigh
one grain ; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a power,
professing to be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy body up
to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately poised balance to move
under test conditions."

Again, he says in the same article : "The first requisite is to be sure
of facts; then to ascertain conditions ; next, laws. Accuracy and knowledge
of detail stand foremost among the great aims of modern scientific men. No
observations are of much use to the student of science unless they are
truthful and made under test conditions ; and here I find the great mass of
spiritualistic evidence to fail. In a subject which, perhaps, more than any
other, lends itself to trickery and deception, the precautions against fraud
appear to have been, in most cases, totally insufficient, owing, it would
seem, to an erroneous idea that to ask for such safe- guards was to imply a
suspicion of the honesty of some one present." I quote these sensible words,
not to help me in my investigations at this place, for my researches are
completed, but to call the attention of other investigators in various other
portions of the country who may happen to read these lines, to the true
method which should guide their researches. The absolute ponderosity of a
materialized spirit has at least been suggested by the weighing experiments
at Chittenden, and it remains only for those who have access, say, to such
compliant and intelligent spirits as Mr. Crookes' "Katie King," or Miss
Showers' " Florence " and " Lenore," to make careful supplemental
experiments, under test conditions, and thus solve one of the most important
problems ever broached to the scientific world.

I saw Honto, on one evening (October 15th), melt away as far up as her
waist, just as she was ready to pass into the cabinet; once I saw a long
lance, with a tapering steel head and a tuft of drooping ostrich plumes
below it, suddenly materialized, in the hand of a male spirit; once, one of
Honto's knitted shawls instantly formed, in a pile, on the floor, before she
even stretched her hand towards the place to pick it up ; and once a little
animal, like a squirrel or a large rat, suddenly appeared, walked about, and
disappeared on the platform, almost frightening poor old Mrs. Cleveland out
of her wits. If I ask Mr. Crookes to tell me by what law these things
happen, he would undoubtedly answer: "Show me fifty such cases, happening
under test conditions, and then we will weigh these things on our scales and
try to discover the law."

"George Dix," the sailor-spirit, tried to enlighten me upon the subject,
one evening. He said that man, in his earth-life, is nothing but a
materialized spirit, a living entity encased in a covering of flesh. To keep
himself and this case together, he must consume and assimilate tons of the
material portions of animal and vegetable food. If he stops the process he
becomes dematerialized, or uncased, in a very brief time. On the other hand,
Spirits can do in a moment what before death it took them years to
accomplish--materialize a body to cover them. In the atmosphere they find
ready for use, an inexhaustible supply of the same matter as that which
exists in the animal and vegetable, only in a diffused and sublimated form;
and by a supreme creative effort of the will they instantly collect the
scattered particles into such shapes as they choose.

What shall we say to all this? That it is silly, useless even if true,
impossible, unscientific? Lord Bacon sets it down as a law unto himself,
never to "reject upon improbabilities until there hath passed a due
examination;"